London - The Start of the Christmas Party Season

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Following our exhausting trip to Paris, we all found it a bit hard to stay awake on Monday, but with the help of a few hot chocolate and a Mars Bar, I managed to get through the day long enough to get my train back home.

Brendan headed back down to Southampton on Tuesday, after having a nice sleep-in while the rest of us were working. I squeezed in a bit of shopping at the local High Wycombe shops at lunch time on Wednesday, and caught up with Emily (Irene’s niece) who had popped back to London following more travels around Europe.

Thursday proved to be a promising day. I woke up early and did my best to get out to door by 7.30am to catch the early express train at 7.50am. But despite my best running efforts most of the way, a glitch at the traffic lights meant I was 1.5 minutes late, and had to catch the 7.59am train to High Wycombe.

I got to work a little later than I had hoped but, but still with plenty of time for the ‘coffee and croissants’ brunch that is held approximately once a month.

I caught the tubes over to Suz’s place, but had a few problems. However, 1 late train and 5 tube lines later I managed to get there.
Apparently the Piccadilly line was down due to someone being ‘under a train’ at Earls Court. - sounds nasty

Suz made us some yummy dinner and I spent the evening chatting with her and Matt about their pending trip to Europe and future plans etc.


I still had not been paid for last week’s work, so I gave Orchard Finance a call. She seemed to think that they had not received any money from my recruitment agency. However, the agency records show they paid the money through at the beginning of the week.
I had planned to eat the lunch I brought to work, but after the drama’s of trying to get the money thing sorted out, I couldn’t say no to the offer of lunch at The Bell with everyone else.

Helen, Beth and Grant came over for dinner followed by a classic DVD: ‘Top Gun’ with Irene
I got a call from Mel (the chick I went to Oktoberfest with) to say she is going back home to Australia and her leaving party is this weekend!

On Saturday I went Christmas shopping along Oxford Street, and found some neat things to send back home. However, as I still had not been paid, I couldn’t buy much more.

I had been keeping a relatively close eye on the time while I was out shopping, but neglected to notice that over the pervious two hours, the time had not changed. Which would explain why it was so dark at 2 o’clock in the afternoon - it was actually 4pm!

I meet Beth, Helen, Grant, Heloise, Logan and the gang at the Shepherd’s Bush WalkAbout to watch the NZ vs Wales game. It was another great game, with a convincing win for the Abs.

We worked our way through a number of snake bite jugs then headed over to Fulham. While we were waiting for the bus, we stopped at Johnbucks and I had a pie!!! -My very first pie! - I had to get lots of photos to mark the occasion, even though I am quite convinced that the whole meat to pastry ratio is completely wrong!

We meet Tracy, Nick, Jackie and Bjane at Belushi’s in Fulham and danced for a while. I started to get tired at about and decided to go home.
The others decided to leave as well and we headed down to the bus stop. Beth noticed KFC just a few doors down, but just as we got to the door, they locked it and would not let us in!

We walked back to the bus stop to find we had just missed the night bus, and had a half hour to wait for the next one. I decided to see if I could find an Offy to get some chips and hopefully a phone card so I could call Leah in NZ. However, none of the offy’s seemed to have the right calling card, but I did get a packet of Dorrito’s - yum!
I headed back to bus stop on time, only to find the bus had come early! Thankfully the girls had got on it, but poor Logan hung around for me and I was only 30 seconds up the road!

We did another search of all the night bus options, and decided with our half hour wait we could check if the other bus stops gave us any better options.
We found the main bus stop and waited for the next bus to come. When it finally did, it was so full it only let a few people on; while at the same time another bus for a different route pulled up mostly empty, let one person off and then drove off before anyone could get on at all! -Its drivers like that that gives night buses a bad name!

We had to wait for another three quarters of an hour for the next bus, which was late, and managed to push our way on. I got off at the Hammersmith Bus Station and said goodbye to Logan who carried on home. While I was busy working out which bus I needed to take home from there, as none seemed to go to Lancaster Gate, the bus I did want just left the station. I had another half hour wait until the next bus in a rather cold Bus Station.
Finally my bus came, and I got home at 4am - 3 hours after I had left Bulushi’s!


I got a call from Suz on Sunday morning and we made plans to meet up for Brunch. I headed over to Clapham and we had some nice pancakes with banana and bacon for Brunch - very nice.

I got a call from Beth at about 3pm to make sure I had got home OK from last night - she was still in bed!!
I sent the afternoon shopping on Oxford Street and found some nice things for Amelia (my niece) for Christmas.

I was quite excited on Monday, as a big parcel arrived for me at work, which had my Christmas presents from home!
Irene, Bal and I went to Salsa, which even though I was tired, it was a lot of fun. I bumped into Jason from Ceroc in Auckland while we were there. I didn’t realise that he was also coming over.

I finally got my pay from last week from my Finance people, and due to their stuff up, was able to get my ₤25 processing fee back for that week.
I headed over to Leicester Square after work to meet up with Mel for her leaving drinks at ‘The Brewmaster,’ before she heads over the Europe for a week, then back home to Australia 😞

I struggled to get out of bed on Wednesday, and on Thursday I decided to set my alarm a little late to try and get a little more sleep, but still struggled to get up.
I spent lunchtime doing more Christmas shopping, and when I got back to the office, Steve asked me to give a girl he was interviewing from NZ a little tour around the office. She asked me if I knew a guy called Ian Garside - who was my Section Head at Beca in NZ! Turns out Lini used to work for North Shore City Council and I had actually met her before - What a small world!

My recruitment agency, Anders’s Elite were having their Christmas party tonight, so I headed over to ‘Club Aquarium’ near Old Street.
I had some food, meet some people - some of whom work with some of my old friends from Beca! We danced the night away until we realised that just about everyone had left, and the last tubes had finished!

We tried to find a night bus, but it was half an hour until the next one was use. We walked towards home until we could find a taxi, and arrived home a little later than expected.

It took a bit of effort to get out of bed on Friday and as I was walking down in the hill into High Wycombe I saw the beckoning light from Greg’s Bakery!

As usual we went down to the local pub, The Bell, to have Thai for lunch. I got a bit of a project update from my job manager, as he is going to be on holiday for the next two weeks and everything is going to be left up to me!

Grant and I were too lazy to go out on Friday night, so we watched a DVD off my computer: “The Inside Man”.


I spent Saturday shopping down Oxford Street. It had been closed off to cars to allow it to be completely pedestrianised. There were so many people! It felt like the Auckland Marathon running through Queen Street.

I tried to do the rest of my Christmas shopping, but wanted to wait until I went to the Portobello Market tomorrow to see what I could find there first. As I was walking down Oxford Street I bumped into Irene who told me that Portobello Markets is on a Saturday morning!!! (I had waited all week to go there and now it was too late!) So we decided to go to Camden Markets tomorrow instead.

Grant and I went out for dinner in Leicester Square while Beth and Helen were away on their holidays. After dinner we had a wander around Leicester Square and Covent Garden, and then walked down to the River Thames. There was a great view from the Bridge across to the London Eye and the House of Parliament. There appeared to be an abundance of lights and on such a clear night everything looked clean and crisp.

We continued along the Southbank past the London Eye and Big Ben then caught the tubes home from Westminster.
I was the only one home when I got back, so called home and also called Clay for a bit of a chat.

Irene and I headed over to Camden Markets on Sunday morning and spent most of the day shopping. Grant and Bjane met up with us for lunch and Grant bought his guitar.
After Camden Markets, Irene and I went to the designer ‘Ghost’ sale at Porchester Hall. We spent ages looking through all the lovely cloths and trying on heaps of stuff. We had to do a bit of a reality check with each other’s potential purchases to make sure we were not going too crazy!
We meet Grant, Bjane and Matt at our place before heading off for dinner and drinks a the local pub in Paddington to seal off another week of work.

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Photos

Shey Bu Walkie
Heloise, Hannah, Grant, Logan

Shey Bu Walkie - Group Pic
Helen, Grant, Heloise, Beth, Hannah, Logan

Nice Hat
Heloise & Logan

A pie!
Hannah's Very First Pie at Johnbucks!

Mel's Leaving Drinks
Mel & Hannah :)

Ander's Elite Christmas Party
Stuarn, Andrew, Hannah

Hannah & Natalie
My Recruitment Agent

River Thames at Night
The London Eye & the House of Parliament

Comments

[Hanz]

Slowly trying to catch up...
Here you go Helen - Another blog for you read while your at work :) xx

[Helen]

Good work
Now, let's see if we can make it to Xmas :P